Friday, September 01, 2017

Shout out to JJ Watt and celebrities like Sandra Bullock, and Kevin Hart, who all raised and donated some serious coin towards the Harvey hurricane relief effort. (I was going to include Tyler Perry in that list, but the he went and did some dumb stuff with Grifter Pastor Joel Osteen and I had to write him off.)

It's really nice when folks who have the ability to do so give some of their dollars to those people in need.

Which brings me to the president of the United States. Apparently he has pledged a million dollars to the people of Houston and to Harvey relief, but if I were the folks down there I wouldn't be holding my breath. Please note that I said "pledged" not actually donated.

Donald doesn't like to spend his own money, and apparently he pledged money to the victims of hurricane Sandy and they are still waiting for it as well. Remember, this is the same New York businessman who gave zero to 9/11 charities. Zilch!

There is a reason for that. Either he doesn't have it to give, or he is too cheap and greedy to give up a million dollars.

The White House was asked about the president's "generous" pledge today and their answer left more questions than answers about the president's intentions. Given the president's history, I suspect that he will not give unless he is forced to like he was with the group helping veteran's families this past spring.

But don't take my word for it, read what a well respected Washington Post reporter wrote:

"In May, under pressure from the news media, Donald Trump made good on a pledge he made four months earlier: Hegave$1 million to a nonprofit group helping veterans’ families.

Before that, however, when was the last time that Trump had given any of his own money to a charity?

If Trump stands by his promises, such donations should be occurring all the time. In the 15 years prior to the veterans donation, Trump promised to donate earnings from a wide variety of his moneymaking enterprises: “The Apprentice.” Trump Vodka. Trump University. A book. Another book. If he had honored all those pledges, Trump’s gifts to charity would have topped $8.5 million.

But in the 15 years prior to the veterans’ gift, public records show that Trump donated about $2.8 million through a foundation set up to give his money away — less than a third of the pledged amount — and nothing since 2009. Records show Trump has given nothing to his foundation since 2008.

Trump and his staff are adamant that he has given away millions privately, off the foundation’s books. Trump won’t release his tax returns, which would confirm such gifts, and his staff won’t supply details. “There’s no way for you to know or understand,” Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks toldBuzzFeedrecently.

In recent weeks, The Post tried to answer the question by digging up records going back to the late 1980s and canvassing a wide swath of nonprofits with some connection to Trump.

That research showed that Trump has a long-standing habit of promising to give to charity. But Trump’s follow-through on those promises was middling — even at the beginning, in his early days as a national celebrity.

In the 1980s, Trump pledged to give away royalties from his first book to fight AIDS and multiple sclerosis. But he gave less to those causes than he did to his older daughter’s ballet school.

In recent years, Trump’s ­follow-through on his promises has been seemingly nonexistent.

The Post contacted 188 charities searching for evidence of personal gifts from Trump in the period between 2008 and this May. The Post sought out charities that had some link to Trump, either because he had given them his foundation’s money, appeared at their charity galas or praised them publicly." [More]

I think you get the picture.

Trump will be at the scene of the disaster tomorrow, and I suspect that he will be there because he needs a do- over. He didn't do so well earlier this week.

He will be well scripted and will try to show empathy. Let's hope that he brings his checkbook as well.

Fergus is too dim to see the upside of charitable giving. That's part of the reason nobody but Pig People like him.

On the lighter side, Mueller has teamed up with the CI division of the IRS, who are some of the most heartless bastards on the planet and have a reputation for building cases that stick.

Which, of course, means he may have access to Fergus' tax returns, which, if nothing else, will so enrage Fergus that he most likely will fuck himself up but good, like the time he admitted on national TV that he fired Comey over the Russia investigation. Had the dumbass not done that, there would be no Mueller investigation.

But guess what, Fergus? You're playing way out of your nasty little league here, and you can't settle or buy your way out of this one.

And the latest serving of moronity in Texas (read that the governor) gave Pence an extended tongue bath over his Jesusiness in what sounded way too much like campaign bullshit to ignore.

So they want to move us from fascism to theocracy? Oh, wait, the fascism wouldn't stop with Pence, they'd just add the theocracy, and subtract any residual intelligence and PRESTO! The government will be ready to hand over to the Koch brothers.

But guess what, Fergus? You're playing way out of your nasty little league here, and you can't settle or buy your way out of this one.

He's trying. He just promised Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley he'd sign off on the support for ethanol that Iowan farmers want. Grassley heads the Senate Judiciary Committee Don Junior will be testifying in front of.

I was only joking. Omarosa isn't being pushed out because she doesn't do anything (although that would be perfectly justifiable).

John Kelly apparently doesn't like the fact that she keeps bringing factual information to Trump's attention, such as the fact that everyone hates him and his poll numbers are plummeting. This causes Trump to go into a towering rage and do unwise things, like rant on Twitter or declare thermonuclear war. Okay, the last one hasn't happened, but this looks disturbingly not too far out of the realm of possibility.

Whatever. Anyway, Kelly is trying to keep Trump happy and drinking his apple juice and playing with his blocks, and Omarosa keeps upsetting him, so she's on Kelly's shit list.

A judge decided there is enough public interest in Hillary emails for the FBI to have to release them. There wasn't much interest from her being a first lady, Senator, Secretary of State, two time presidential candidate, losing to Donald Trump, being a war criminal, helping to found ISIS, stealing an election from Sanders, or the corruption scandals. But we can't wait to read about those yoga lessons.

Trump derangement syndrome is preaching to the choir. Not everyone is dumb enough to vote for Republicans just because they have a D by their name. There are enough gung ho Trump supporters to offset them. The people who are are too blind to see how repulsive Democrats have become is a shrinking minority. Various progressives think Kamala Harris is being anointed as the heir to the corporate establishment wing of the Democratic Party. She has met with Hillary's donors. She is cosponsoring Bernie Sander's universal healthcare bill which conveniently won't pass with a Republican majority and a bunch of establishment Democrats, much less make it to a Trump veto. It's a Hillary public and private position deja vu.

Osteen's shelter is still better than the Red Cross shelter at George R Brown center. The GRAB shelter has turned away the elderly (too much work), families with kids (too much trouble) and singles (idk?).Perry just wants to be accepted and if he accepted by white people that's even better.If he wanted to donate through a local church to a Pastor Pimp maybe Reverend IV Hilliard would have been a better choice.

Trump is supposed to come to Louisiana today and I'll wait to see how much the pledges there.

Limpaw- between point A (draft letter) and point B (final report) what exact incriminating evidence against HRC was uncovered? What smoking guns did Comey leave out the of the final report? Let's see what you got!

No surprise that Omarosa is the next one scheduled for the chopping block.There's no need for her job at the "White" House. POTUS is not interested in reaching out to anybody black... unless it's for a photo op.

Hey at least he kept her around longer than most Negroes.Aren't Negroes usually the first to be eliminated during the first few minutes of every feature film?

Did everybody read the mayor of Houston's answer to a reporter's question? Trump hadn't called him. Could the fact the the mayor is of a dark complexion have anything to do with it? Or is it just that Trump doesn't know a phone call could telegraph concern, interest, responsibility? There are so many god-awful reasons to choose from.

Yeah, since Jackson HATED the very idea of paper money, having his likeness on the twenty has always been somewhat ironic. And they weren't planning on removing him from the twenty, just moving him to the back, which seems sort of screwy to me. Maybe now they'll go back to the original plan and put Tubman on the ten. Fergus and his boys don't think too highly of Hamilton, last I checked...

Now Mueller has the original screed, I mean letter Fergus wrote to Comey to fire him, which his staff talked him out of actually sending. Just going by the level of felonious idiocy that spews forth like a brown fire hose from this white house, and the level of utter lying dishonesty in the letter that DID get sent, one would imagine this screed to be somewhat incriminating, given that they were successful in persuading Fergus not to send it.

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